We just shipped a desktop version of Rowboat that runs fully offline: rowboat.net It's silly fast, the app loads almost instantly, and you can plunk a multiple gigabyte dataset into it and it just starts spilling out answers. Lots more in the pipeline; try it out and send us your feedback!

Nice! And images, you say… That would be fun, wouldn't it?

The installer for macOS Sequoia version 15.7.1 is… 15.71 GB. Well done, everyone. A++

Sometimes you have an idea so dumb that you HAVE to do it (I didn’t get this up in time for Halloween though)

actual lol

👏

Zohran at the rally for trans youth on february 8 ❣️ he was polling single digits.

Nice to see a positive counterpoint to the spineless behavior of the largest tech companies.

“Limiting the platforms’ take also creates incentives to build and can effectively subsidize innovation… The golden ages of American building — the canal age, the railroad age, the electricity age — all featured flourishing economies that ran on neutral network infrastructure.”

The organist for the Red Sox, ladies and gentlemen, rocketing his way into the top 10 of “most Massachusetts halloween costumes ever” as the pride of Amherst. 💚

Finally an excuse to purchase: the Playdate is now a work expense.

In my opinion @liyuan6.bsky.social is the most insightful writer on contemporary China today. In this essay, she reflects on Silicon Valley's misconceptions (it doesn't help that tech bros mostly stay in 5-star hotels in Shanghai as their idea of "China"):

Love it when my crew makes things like this… beautiful, high utility information design work from them, and even a custom typeface from Paul, all to support Mark's Finnish habit.

On Friday's we often end the day with a short workshop taught by someone in the studio. Recently, my 8yo came by the office to teach a (very entertaining) workshop on building stop motion animations with LEGO. Somehow, he was completely unfazed by doing this for people several times his age.

“anti-number”

This is 2.5 minutes of insider-driven clarity from @alondra.bsky.social on an admin that increasingly rewards ideology over principles and elevates individuals without subject matter expertise into decision making roles, further undermining the mission of independent federal agencies.

Our 80s-obsessed President executing on the right-wing fever dream found in Tom Clancy's 1989 novel “Clear and Present Danger” (later a movie starring Harrison Ford) …but missing the part of the story where these actions were blatantly illegal & the President loses his office for them.

Major media outlet falling down on the job of explaining that political influencers are the new propagandists in a take that could illustrate a class on Manufacturing Consent.

Relieved to read that MIT has rejected the “Compact for Higher Education” proposed by the Trump administration orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega... “The document includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression & our independence as an institution.”

New music video just dropped! www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKfM... We had so much fun in the hall making this. Can't wait to share the album with you and tour it next year!

Oh my god… our studio is the top floor of this building. Had no idea this was being filmed just downstairs, directly below my office. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED0-...

Reading a bedtime story to my 8yo and was not expecting to find @djpatil.bsky.social as one of the characters in his Wayside School book… 💜

Yikes. www.pcmag.com/news/qualcom...

The “you're holding it wrong” fiasco was partly fueled by using poorly chosen ranges for the bars that show signal, causing slight shifts to make the phone drop from 5 bars to 2. Neat thread on disassembling the iOS source to figure it out…

very cool! 📈

:)

Australia and Austria side by side

beautiful collection

Latest version of Rowboat has some really nice mapping updates from Karlie:

The main reason I am not on X is I know enough about this stuff to know however immune one thinks they are to information ops, propaganda, and algorithmic manipulation it has an impact on the way you see the world. Even when you think you're kicking against it, you're dancing to their tune.

Take heart, fellow creators: even Taylor F*ing Swift still has to deal with billion dollar companies suggesting she do her work for free—in exchange for “the exposure.” www.yahoo.com/entertainmen...

Happy 50th anniversary to BYTE magazine, which a young version of me happily devoured or at least stared at, trying to understand it (I was 8 or 9 or 10…) Much of its cover art also stuck with me as interesting visions of computing. Here's all of 1977–1986, my favorite decade of the bunch.

Possible causes of your problems. It’s a diagram that (sadly) still seems relevant in 2025, so reposting a year and a bit on.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

Our Rowboat tool is about instantly seeing what's in a dataset, so we added a Chrome Extension that lets you open random datasets from all over the internet. Right click, poof! 0.2 seconds later we see what this dataset actually looks like. No workspace to set up, no waiting for the app, no db.

(by Nathan W. Pyle @nathanwpyle.bsky.social)

omg, right down to the trackball… want

The MacBook has a sensor that tracks how far the lid is open or closed, so our hero has found the private API that gets this information, so that we can make theremin noises with it. Code (and compiled app) at the link…

Be still my heart: a new blog dedicated to productivity tools from the late 70s through the mid-90s. (I think about this stuff way too much—how a lot could be done with very little, and understanding what made those things tick versus today's tools.)

very few ppl are as talented and fortunate as bill cunningham. but i often think about how he was able to live an honest life doing what he loved because he lived simply. even at the height of his career, he slept on a cot. as he once said, "if you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do."

“We understand that over the past 250-odd years, you have come to rely on the services provided by the U.S. of A.: postal delivery, representative government, edible food, clean water, lifesaving vaccines, and no kings—ever, guaranteed. Well, 250 years of free is enough.”

Labor Day cartoon by Fred Wright, 1962.

Pretty great that my staff enjoy each other enough that they went out of their way to run 7(!) miles together to get to the studio. 🩵

“It seems inevitable that a computer chip will generate more awe-inspiring drawings than I do. My survival as an artist will depend on whether I’ll be able to offer something that A.I. can’t: drawings that are as powerful as a birthday doodle from a child.” www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

“Everyone in computer science has bought into the pact of evaporating oceans for better coding assistants. But scaling is all you need until you hit diminishing returns. Overindexing on the bitter lesson is a commitment to nihilism.”

This week‘s issue of Die @zeit.de features a number of travel drawings I have made all across Germany. A big thank you to the editorial and art department and the great @christophamend.bsky.social for masterminding the collaboration and the interview. www.christophniemann.com/detail/zeit-...

An accessible thread on the history of promises to make programming more accessible

!!!

New single dropped! "Misdirection" is the second single from the upcoming album by our band You, Me, Everybody. It's the bluegrass banger. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzqU... Follow us on Spotify and eventually we'll be able to afford a coffee! open.spotify.com/album/342xor...